


Now You're Lifting Me Up (Instead of Holding Me Down)

by platonicbullshit



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Coaching AU, Dancer AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-07 06:25:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18404951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platonicbullshit/pseuds/platonicbullshit
Summary: “I have no experience with ballroom dance,” she says sharply.“I’m not asking you to teach them to tango, Tessa.” Scott bites back. “I have that part covered. It’s what comes between. The transitions and the upper body and the interpretation of the music. Come to the rink and I’ll show you what I mean.”Tessa looks at him for a long moment, taking slow sips from her cup. Scott watches her blink, long dark lashes falling over her vibrant green eyes, and he forgets where he is for a moment.[Or: Scott desperately needs a choreographer]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have returned!!
> 
> I can't promise frequent updates with this one because I'm posting as I write and I'm in the busy part of the semester at the moment (whereas I had almost all of I Think the Rest of Campus Melted Away before I started posting and I was on spring break) but I'm too excited to wait.
> 
> Title is from Butterflies by Kacey Musgraves.
> 
> Without further ado, enjoy!

Scott Moir does not find himself at the ballet very frequently. He’s been to his nieces’ dance recitals, and since moving to Toronto he thinks he’s been to the National Ballet of Canada once, on a semi-disastrous second date.

It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate the art. That’s not it at all. In fact, he quite enjoys watching dance (particularly the professional kind. He’s less sure about a hoard of six-year-olds spinning around chaotically in tutus). It’s just that dance is his job, his career, his whole life. He has had to watch enough dance to gather ideas for programs, had taken enough classes to strengthen his skating, had spent multiple decades doing dances of his own. So he doesn’t particularly want to spend his limited time off watching even more dance.

His mother, however, loves watching dance.

And it’s her birthday, and she’s visiting him in Toronto, and he’s a good son, so he takes her to the National Ballet. He gets them tickets for La Bayadère, and Scott finds a sense of comfort in the unfamiliar name. At least this isn’t a ballet that’s been frequently interpreted onto the ice. Maybe he’ll actually be able to enjoy it.

His mom gets all dressed up and practically forces him into a pair of slacks and a button down that had been hiding in the back of his closet for the past few years.

“Sweats and a t-shirt aren’t appropriate theater attire, Scotty,” she scolds him as he grumbles about changing. He puts the outfit on, protesting mostly for her benefit. He knows she likes to mother him a bit, especially now, when all of her kids have been out of the house for so long.

They get to the theater and take in the grandness of it all. Scott has to admit, there’s an element of glamor in the theater that an ice rink lacks. Where he’s used to stark whites and advertising banners, the theater is all dramatic colors and intricate carvings. The seats are plush and not as uncomfortable as he’d assume, and he helps his mother into hers before he sinks into his own.

There’s an anxiousness settled somewhere deep in Scott’s belly.

The audience takes its time to settle in, moving around restlessly and tittering softly. Scott flips through his program, thumbing past advertisements and pages thanking donors and a list of the shows the National Ballet is performing this season. He finds a description of the show they’re about to see and skims over it. He can’t make himself focus enough to truly process the words on the page, but he hopes that it might help him comprehend the show a bit better. He shakes his knee up and down until his mother reaches over and sets a hand on his leg to still him.

At last, the house lights dim, and Scott tries to relax back into his seat. The first few dramatic notes of the music fill the hall. Dark, moody lights flood the stage.

He watches as soldiers march across the stage, as women dressed in magnificent colors move in perfect synchronicity, as the stage fills with dancers creating a story with no words.

But it’s not until the stage goes dark and quiet when Scott feels himself pulled in. A woman enters, long, dark hair pulled away from her face in a braid, delicate white costume floating around her slight frame, gliding across the stage as though she’s floating.

Scott is entranced.

The following two hours pass by in a blur. Scott can’t think about anything but the woman gracing the stage in front of him. Where he’d previously been enjoying himself, he’s now entirely invested. During intermission, his mom stands to go to the restroom and Scott’s pretty sure she’s asked him something but he doesn’t process it. He grunts in response, feeling dazed, and it seems to appease her. She returns ten minutes later and presses a bottle of water into his hands.

Intermission ends and Scott is drawn back into the world that this ethereal woman is creating on stage before him. She moves in even sweeps and easy lifts and falls and Scott is breathless. She’s magnetizing. While he originally took in the entire show, his eyes now only follow her.

The curtain falls after the company takes their bows and Scott is pulled from his trance. He shakes himself out slightly, takes his mom home, and crawls into bed.

He falls asleep to the image of the ballerina painted on the back of his eyelids.

++

“Hey, coach!” Two voices ring out across the empty rink as Scott steps through the door. He’s not sure there’s any sound better, except maybe an Olympic crowd cheering at the end of a clean skate.

“Hey, guys!” He addresses his team cheerily, joining them at the benches lining the outside of the boards. Maggie already has her skates on, laced up neatly and tucked under her leggings, and she’s clearly irritated by the leisurely speed at which her partner is lacing his own up. “Did you have a nice weekend?”

“Sure did, Scooter,” Maggie says, and he can hear the agitation woven into her voice. He sends her a look, eyebrows arched, at the nickname, and she smirks. Scott wants to hate that she knows she can get away with calling him a dumb nickname, but it really just makes him grateful for the relationship he has with his teams.

“Okay, okay,” Scott laughs, tugging his own skates out of his bag. Tyler finally finishes tying his laces and stands, pulling Maggie up behind him. Scott eyes them, sure they’re about to get into trouble. “Go do some laps.”

The two set off around the rink, racing each other like little kids. Scott smiles fondly as he makes his way to the office. He drops his bag next to his desk, pulls out his notes and his coffee and heads back out to the ice.

When he reenters the rink, Maggie is flying around the rink on Tyler’s back. Scott shakes his head at them, their laughs ricocheting off of the boards and the walls and the smooth ice under their blades. He appreciates the friendship between his students, the lightness and laughter that follow these two skaters wherever they go.

It’s not at all like Scott’s own career. He’s glad that his teams won’t be put through the hell that he was.

Scott moves to stand at the boards, watching as Maggie and Tyler transition from a piggyback ride into one of the lift positions from their previous season’s free dance.

“Be careful!” Scott calls out, stepping into coach-mode. Tyler looks up from Maggie and, when he sees Scott watching, gently returns her to the ice. She skates away from him, gliding in Scott’s direction. Her hands find her hips and even though she’s on the other end of the rink Scott can tell she’s rolling her eyes.

“We always are, coach!” She yells back sarcastically, before reaching for Tyler’s hand. “Now, do we have rhythm dance music?”

Scott queues up the music he’d sloppily cut the previous night after Maggie and Tyler had made their final decision about their music in practice that day. He’s already overwhelmed by the prospect of choreographing three rhythm dances for the upcoming season. All of his teams had chosen music in the last week, and the task ahead of him is suddenly apparent and daunting. He struggles to imagine the three unique programs he’s been tasked with creating.

He’s always been a technician, loved the precise angles of a deep edge and the critical analysis of a new pattern sequence. He had loved creating new lifts to challenge himself, always daring to lift a foot off the ice or drop a hand from his partner’s waist. He had thrived in technical elements and had left the artistry to everyone else.

It’s biting him in the ass now, though, as he’s taken on sole responsibility of not one but three teams, requiring six programs, a full 21 minutes of choreography. As an athlete himself he’d rarely contributed to his own choreography, and suddenly he’s the one generating six new programs every season.

And now that he’s coaching in Toronto, the only ice dance coach at the rink, he has no help. He’s not sure he can do it alone. Maybe he should hire a choreographer. But then, where does one find a choreographer for hire?

It’s all too much. He has more pressing issues to deal with.

So rather than starting in on choreography, Scott starts working Maggie and Tyler through their required Finnstep pattern. He lets their private ice time slip by, drilling the steps into his skaters, shoving all thoughts of new choreography into the back of his mind.

He’ll deal with that when he absolutely has to.

++

It turns out that “absolutely has to” comes a lot quicker than Scott would like. As much as he wishes he could keep working his teams through pattern dances and sequential twizzles and the beginning stages of creating lifts, after a couple days of work they’re all restless over the chopped up bits of program set against music.

It’s mid-morning on a Wednesday and he has both of his senior teams on the ice that afternoon and rather than working through some potential choreography on the ice or in a studio or just bouncing ideas off of his friends or fellow coaches or even his mother, Scott sits in the office he shares with two singles coaches and listens to Carly and Aiden’s rhythm dance music on repeat until it stops sounding like music and fails at drowning out his thoughts.

 _You can’t do this, you’re going to fail._ A voice that sounds suspiciously like an amalgamation of all of his former coaches taunts him in the back of his head. He turns up the music throbbing through his earbuds several notches higher, until he sees Mitch glance over at him from his desk and thinks his officemate must be able to hear it and turns it back down.

The choppy cut Scott had put together several evenings earlier and had yet to smooth out comes to a dramatic end, and then a deafening silence fills his ears for a moment before the piece starts over again. Scott thinks he must be desensitized to the rise and fall of it now, the tempo changes falling on deaf ears, the rough cuts between songs blurring together between his ears and his brain.

He closes his eyes and where he used to be able to picture a seamless program to any musical composition – even his niece just banging a fist on the wooden table of his parents’ house – he now sees nothing but darkness behind his eyelids. It’s frustrating, his first season as a completely independent coach with his own teams and programs, and he can’t even begin to choreograph one of the six programs on his hands.

So much for the Olympic medals sitting on his shelf at home.

He drops his head forward onto the desk in front of him as the song ends and restarts once more. It lands with a _thunk_ that definitely has Mitch eyeing him worriedly, and Scott groans. He’s fucked.

After a long moment with his forehead resting on the cool wood of his desk, during which Carly and Aiden’s music continues to pump into his ears for maybe three or maybe four or maybe five more repetitions, Scott sits up, scrubs his eyes with the palms of his hands, and fires up his computer. He still has hours until his teams are supposed to arrive at the rink. Maybe he’ll be able to find some kind of inspiration online and have something to show for the five hours he’ll have been at the rink for ahead of their practices.

He pulls his earbuds out of his phone, hit with a sudden wave of gratitude for the silence that replaces the loop of Broadway that has been filling his brain for nearly two hours now, and plugs them into his laptop instead. Opening youtube is a mistake, though, because before he can search for old skating programs or dance videos, he sees a new SNL clip from the previous weekend and clicks on that instead.

Scott quickly learns that when a lack of ideas meets procrastination and sketch comedy clips, a beautiful concoction of blissful distraction is created. He’s sucked deep into a vortex of comedy and fail videos and a compilation of dogs sounding like humans that’s somehow twenty minutes long before a video pops up in his recommended feed that catches his eye.

He scans over the recommendation before clicking on it. It was uploaded by the National Ballet of Canada account so it’s probably the most relevant video he’s watched so far, he justifies to himself.

But that’s not why he clicked on it, and he watches the entire video twice through without absorbing any of the choreography.

No, he’s far too focused on one of the dancers in the piece, featured in the thumbnail and now moving across a monochromatic stage with exercised precision. Each movement is sharp and considered, and she uses her pointe shoes in a way that Scott didn’t quite know was possible.

It’s a stark contrast to the ethereal presence she brought to La Bayadère. She’s almost austere, hair and eyes dark, the simple blue leotard and tights accenting the definition of her body.

As he had been that night at the theater, Scott is pulled deep into a trance as the video cuts between clips. He longs for a longer shot of her, to watch her roll and writhe around the stage, to admire the lines of her body and the way the rest of the ensemble fades and blurs as his focus is drawn to her.

The video ends too soon, and Scott is shaken back into the real world. He scrolls into the comment section of the video in an attempt to seek out more information, something to appease the strange desire buried deep inside of him to know everything about this woman. He finds a comment asking who the lead is, and he knows the commenter is talking about _her_ , and a response reads “Tessa Virtue!” and he forces himself to be content with that information.

He has a name and the image of her twirling around behind his eyelids and for now that’s enough.

There isn’t time to agonize over this woman whom he does not know, who does not know him, who has done nothing but perform a set of assigned movements across a stage and has yet managed to shift Scott’s entire world.

He has more important things to do right now. Such as coaching his teams who are slated to arrive in less than twenty minutes and who are certainly expecting some semblance of a program and for whom Scott has nothing.

He’s definitely fucked.

++

Scott loves working with his senior teams, but he’s not ashamed to admit he has a soft spot in his heart for his single junior team. He’s been working with them for years, since before he retired from his own amateur career. They’d started out at his home rink, and he remembers when Erin was just barely toddling around on her blades, when Dylan had quit for two months to try hockey instead, when they were first paired up and the whole club could see the potential bundled up in the two tiny kids.

And now they’ve followed him to Toronto, and he’s entirely responsible for them.

He watches them take a few laps around the rink, hands linked together between them, nodding and murmuring words only they can hear. They’re cute, even now, as teenagers making their junior debut. They transition into a dance hold, and start working through the foxtrot pattern they’ve been working on.

Scott’s proud of them. He’s also terrified.

He watches Erin glide around Dylan and can sense the frustration radiating off of her. He knows Dylan feels it too, can see it in the gentle, if not tentative hold he has on her. Erin moves with ease and grace, but she lacks the quickness and attack that the pattern requires of her. Her turns are leisurely rather than sharp, her edges are deep yet soft, her posture is suggestive rather than commanding.

Scott admires Erin’s graceful movement. She’s a natural dancer, she brings energy to every tiny movement, every bend of a knee and flick of a finger and point of a toe. She’s all beautiful lines and gentle curves and soft light.

Unfortunately, that’s not what this dance is about.

And more unfortunate still is that Scott has absolutely no idea how to tell her what she needs to do to fix it.

His skaters finish the step sequence and weave through the other skaters on the ice to meet him at the boards, and Scott resists the urge to sigh and run his fingers through his hair and chew on the cap of the water bottle sitting on the boards in front of him. He can’t show them how frustrated he is. They’re just kids, and he knows they’ll interpret his discontent as unhappiness toward them, lord knows he did when he was training, and that’s not it at all. So he paints on a smile he hopes doesn’t look too much like a grimace and nods encouragingly at them as they approach.

“That was great, guys!” The cheery words sound wrong coming out of his mouth, and his smile falters when he sees Erin flinch.

“You don’t have to bullshit us, coach.” Erin groans, looking at her feet. She moves her skates back and forth, carving thin grooves into the ice beneath her skates. “I know that I don’t have it yet. I’m working on it.”

“I know you are, Edie.” She glances up at him at his use of her childhood nickname, and he smiles goofily at her. “It just needs to be a bit sharper, y’know?”

Erin shrugs, looking back at the ice. “I guess I just don’t know how to be sharper. I’m trying, I really am. I just go to do the movements and it comes out all flowy.”

“I think it looks good,” Dylan offers, reaching out to put a hand on his partner’s arm. She looks up at him, immediately flushes under his gaze, and looks back at the ice intently.

 _Kids,_ Scott thinks with a chuckle under his breath. “It does look good. But the quality of the movement is important for scores and judging and everything, and this particular pattern dance requires a sharpness that you haven’t mastered yet. You’ll get there, though, Erin. I promise.”

The girl looks back up at him and Scott tries to express all of his confidence in her through his gaze. Erin just nods, still looking dejected, and pushes away from the boards.

“Come on, Dylan. Let’s run it again.”

They work through the pattern several more times and Scott watches as Erin’s confidence rises and falls with every attempt. Dylan gives her several pep talks, and Scott can tell he’s talking to her throughout the pattern. He hasn’t quite mastered the subtle talking-through-one’s-teeth that Scott had perfected by the time he retired.

No matter what they do, what Scott and Dylan tell her, at the end of an hour Erin has yet to complete a run through she’s happy with. She returns to the board and grabs the bottle of water that Scott hands her before stalking off to the other side of the rink. Dylan stays with Scott, shaking his head at him helplessly.

“I don’t know what to do,” Dylan says after taking a long pull of his own water.

“Don’t worry too much about it, kiddo.” Scott reassures him. “There’s not much we can do. I wish I knew how to get through to her, but I always had the opposite problem. Not graceful enough.”

Scott mimes tripping over an imaginary toe pick and feels some of the tension in the rink lift when Dylan laughs.

“She needs someone who thinks like her, who moves like her.” Scott says, shrugging.

“She needs a ballerina,” Dylan says, turning to look at where Erin is moving through the foxtrot steps once again, alone in a distant corner. “Someone who has to do both the flowy and the sharp.”

Scott doesn’t follow Dylan’s line of sight, though. Instead, he stills where he’s standing, hands gripping the boards, staring at the back of Dylan’s head in front of him.

The kid has no idea, but he’d just given Scott the most brilliant idea.

Now he just needs to figure out how to implement it.

++

The National Ballet of Canada is surprisingly somewhat open to Scott’s request for one of their ballerina’s information. He calls the number listed on their website and follows a string of “press 4 to speak to a real person,” before he’s finally redirected to someone connected to the company and who he hopes can provide him the information he wants and won’t immediately recommend she file for a restraining order.

“How can I help you today?” The woman on the other end of the phone asks.

“Yeah, hi, I’m trying to get in contact with one of your dancers? I’d like to talk to her about a business opportunity.” He’d thought quite a bit about how he would make this proposition in order to not sound like a stalker trying to find her at her place of work.

“Typically promotional opportunities go through the specific dancer’s agencies, I can get you in contact with an agent if you’d like? Who are you trying to contact?” Scott bites back a frustrated groan. He knows he’d never make it past her agent’s email inbox if he went that route. He really just wants to take her out for coffee and talk to her.

But that’s not going to help his not-a-stalker case, so he bites his tongue.

“Tessa Virtue? It’s not really a promotional opportunity though, and I’m not with, like, a big company, or anything,” Scott says, cringing slightly because he thinks that’s probably not very convincing with the whole not-a-stalker thing, either. “I just want to talk to her briefly, nothing formal yet.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t very well give out a dancer’s personal information.” Scott thinks he detects a hint of remorse in the woman’s voice. “If you’d like to talk to someone in person, though, I can give you a general schedule for company members and you can use that as you wish.”

“Okay, I’ll take it. See what I can do on my own.” Scott tries not to sound too dejected. This woman is clearly bending the rules for him, and he’s grateful.

“Is there a number I can fax it to? Or would an email be better?”

“Fax is fine,” Scott says, giving her the number for the fax machine at the rink. “Thanks so much.”

“No problem, sir.” The call ends, and Scott sits back in his chair, waiting for the machine to start whirring with the incoming job.

When he pulls the sheets of paper out of the machine, he notices that certain blocks have been underlined and circled. His eyes are drawn to one such block, in which neat handwriting has printed “NBS, studio 7.”

Scott suddenly wishes he had caught the name of the woman on the other end of the line, because she certainly deserves a card or flowers or a large sum of cash for what she’s done for him.

++

It’s a few days before Scott is able to make it to the National Ballet School. He calls on Friday, and the block with the specified studio number is on Thursday. It would have taken him some time, anyway, first to build up his nerve and then to decipher that NBS did, in fact, stand for National Ballet School.

But then, nearly a week after he makes the call, he finds himself outside of the daunting building, fronted with a sign reading “Canada’s National Ballet School.” The building is massive, all sharp angles and crystal glass. Scott watches two little girls, dressed in tiny leotards and hair done up in impeccable buns, pull their mother inside. He can’t imagine a child so small being anything but intimidated by this place.

Hell, he’s intimidated by this place.

Confronted by the reality of the situation he’s about to put himself in, the woman he’s about to lay out his dilemma to, all of the nerve he’d spent the past week building up suddenly dissipates. He takes one last glance at the sign, reassuring himself that he is in the right place, as if there could be any question about that, clenches his jaw tight, and enters the building.

The inside is just as grand and terrifying as the outside had been, only now he’s surrounded by people who seem a thousand times more comfortable than he could ever be here. He stands in the atrium for a moment, swarmed by kids and teenagers and parents and teachers, and he thinks he must stick out like a sore thumb in his joggers and Canada t-shirt.

Should he have dressed up for this? He should really have let his mom take him shopping while she was in town.

He shakes himself out his daze and heads toward the elevators. He’s grateful that there’s a map situated immediately beside the panel he approaches to request an upward elevator. He locates studio seven on the third floor, and thinks that maybe this won’t be too difficult, maybe he’s worrying too much.

When he steps off the elevator and onto the third floor, the nerves flood his system again and he takes it all back.

The hallway is long and bright and there’s gently overlapping classical music streaming in from various studios and a group of girls sitting along one wall, putting on pointe shoes. They look up at Scott curiously and he nods to them before walking past.

He stops outside studio seven. He doesn’t need to check the number on the plaque outside the door, though, because his eyes immediately land on her through the viewing window carved into the wall separating the studio from the hallway. There’s music filling this room too, but it’s something light and funky and you might even hear it on the radio.

She’s moving with calculated ease, slinking around the room and hitting each beat in the song as though it’s the most important. She’s wrapped up in a dark leotard, a navy that offsets her creamy skin in the best way, leggings pulled high up on her hips and hugging her legs so that Scott can see each ripple of muscle in her legs as she moves, and her hair is piled up in the most effortlessly messy bun Scott has ever seen. And as a figure skater, Scott has seen his fair share of just-rolled-out-of-bed buns. Scott feels himself being drawn into a trance once more, just as he had the night he’d watched her perform meticulous choreography on a decorated stage in a fancy costume.

He gets so lost in her that he doesn’t realize that she has noticed him staring, has stopped moving, has marched over to the door and is now standing immediately in front of her.

She’s even more beautiful up close. Also scarier.

“Can I help you?” She snaps, hands balled up into fists and perched on her hips.

“Uh,” Scott’s jaw opens and closes a few times as he works out what he’s meant to say here. His pre-prepared speech, telling her that he has a potential business opportunity he’d like to discuss with her and asking if she would please have coffee with him, flies out the window. His mind goes blank, and all he can do is open and close his mouth like a goldfish.

“You were watching me dance.” The woman in front of him says, as though attempting to remind him how he got there. “Quite creepily, I must say. All crossed-arms and furrowed eyebrows. See something you didn’t like?”

Scott lets out a puff of air. She seems to be teasing now, her voice taking on a different quality, lighter and tinged with laughter.

“Right, sorry about that.” He mumbles, dropping his arms from where he realizes they’re still crossed over his chest. “I’m Scott, Scott Moir.”

He sticks out a hand for her to shake, and wonders briefly if she’ll recognize his name. He’s not famous, per se, but over the course of his three-Olympic career his name has spread across Canada a fair amount. She just takes his hand, though, no flicker of recognition in her eyes, and he thinks maybe not. She’s probably been too busy with her own career to keep up with some stranger’s.

“Tessa Virtue.” She pumps his hand up and down twice and a bright smile crosses her face. “Now, what can I do for you, Scott? Any particular reason you decided to brood outside of the studio I was rehearsing in?”

“Right. Any chance you’d get a cup of coffee with me? I have a proposition for you.”

++

“Let me get this straight,” Tessa peers at him over her cup of coffee. “You want me, a professional ballerina with absolutely no skating experience, to help you, Olympic figure skater, coach ice dance?”

“Yes.” Scott nods at her, not entirely sure where her hesitation stems from. It’s not unheard of for off-ice dancers to advise ice dance teams, he’d worked with several throughout his amateur and show skating career. But the woman in front of him is still looking at him like he’s just grown a second head. “Well, not coach exactly. Just choreography. It would really mostly be off ice, basically like any other choreography.”

“Why me?” She asks finally.

“I told you, I saw you perform the other week and I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You were incredible, and I think you could be really valuable to my teams.” He bites his tongue before he adds how attractive she is and how much he wants to spend more time with her and his weird urge to find out every little detail about her. He doesn’t think that would be conducive to his argument. “I’m not great with choreography, and I think you could really help me out there.”

“I have no experience with ballroom dance,” she says sharply.

“I’m not asking you to teach them to tango, Tessa.” Scott bites back. “I have that part covered. It’s what comes between. The transitions and the upper body and the interpretation of the music. Come to the rink and I’ll show you what I mean.”

Tessa looks at him for a long moment, taking slow sips from her cup. Scott watches her blink, long dark lashes falling over her vibrant green eyes, and he forgets where he is for a moment.

Her soft, “okay,” brings him back to the moment.

“Okay?” He confirms, and she nods slowly.

“Okay.” Scott tries to tame the butterflies fluttering in his stomach, not sure where they’ve suddenly come from. “I’m not promising I’ll help coach. Or choreograph, or whatever. But I’ll consider it. And I want to go to the rink with you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s not until he’s out on the ice that he understands the intensity she possesses. From his position at her side by the boards she had seemed interested, maybe even intrigued. From this angle, under her direct scrutiny, she seems positively critical. With her shoulders thrust back and her chin lifted and her face stormy she commands an intimidating presence, and Scott is suddenly more nervous than he’s been on the ice since he was twenty-two and stepping onto Olympic ice for the first time.
> 
> Now, under Tessa Virtue’s critical eye, he wants to be perfect. The rational part of his brain knows that she isn’t familiar with ice dance technique, doesn’t know what a flawless Choctaw looks like, doesn’t understand the significance of a deep edge. But the other part of his brain, the 95% that lacks all capability of rational thought, wants desperately to impress her.
> 
> If he stays on the ice longer than strictly necessary, is more involved than typical, demonstrates some of the more difficult steps in Maggie and Tyler’s step sequence, well, he’s just being a good coach, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I should have been doing this past week: writing three papers, submitting a grant application, finishing a pile of calculus homework.
> 
> What I actually did this past week: all of that plus writing this, because who needs sleep, right?
> 
> I have not edited this yet so if it's a mess that's why! I will edit it eventually I promise.
> 
> Enjoy!

Scott is standing at the boards a week later, yelling at Carly to get into her lift position faster when Tessa steps up beside him, appearing to any onlookers as though she’s perfectly comfortable in the role of ice dance coach.

“Hi,” Scott says, turning to face her. She’s watching the skaters moving across the ice, her brow furrowed and her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

She nods and grunts softly to let him know that she’s heard him.

“Those are mine,” Scott says, pointing to where Carly and Aiden are still working through a lift across the ice. “I have two more coming in about fifteen minutes. That’s when the chaos hits.”

Scott chuckles at his own joke, but Tessa just nods once more, still watching Carly and Aiden work through the limited choreography Scott has given them. They move through the Finnstep pattern and Scott and Tessa huff in unison when Aiden stumbles. They watch as the team finishes their program – still sparse with Scott’s limited choreography – and Scott sees Tessa moving and nodding along beside him from the corner of his eye.

He wants to watch her, to take in the twitch of her fingers as she fights the urge to dance along, the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes the music and the movement in and out, the way her head follows the choreography the skaters are tracing along the ice.

The program ends all too soon, and he’s trying not to seem like a complete stalker, so he pulls his attention away from the woman beside him and returns to his skaters on the ice. He watches Carly and Aiden finish up a lap of leisurely stroking around the ice before coming to a stop in front of him and Tessa.

“It’s getting there,” Scott tells them, nodding encouragingly. “It’s not clean yet, and hopefully Aiden stops tripping over your leg, Carly, but it’s getting there.”

He watches them nod but he knows his team is paying no attention to him.

Their eyes are trained on Tessa, still standing with her arms crossed and her brow creased and her teeth pulling on her lip. She’s not looking back at them, though, rather at a point just over Aiden’s shoulder. Out onto the ice.

Her head is still moving to a tune he can’t hear.

Carly coughs and Scott is brought back to the moment. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring, but the unimpressed look on Carly’s face and the knowing smirk adorning Aiden’s tells him everything he needs to know.

“Right, uh, guys, this is Tessa Virtue. Tessa, this is Carly and Aiden.” Scott’s voice is weirdly rough as he makes the introductions. He coughs to clear his throat and scuffs a foot against the ground. “Carly and Aiden are one of my senior pairs, they skate for America. Tessa is a dancer with the Canadian National Ballet.”

“Hi,” Tessa says softly, tucking a strand of hair that’s come loose from her ponytail behind her ear. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

Aiden sticks out a hand, and Tessa extends her own to shake it before repeating the act with Carly. Scott watches the interaction, catching Tessa’s eyes as they frantically flick between him and his skaters and the ice and the ceiling. He knows she’s thinking about how awkward this is, and suddenly worries that it’s going to scare her off.

“Okay, I think we should work on some lifts for the free today, eh?” Scott says, desperate to ease the tension and return to the task at hand. “Tessa’s just going to watch for a bit, if that’s alright with the two of you?”

“Sure thing, coach,” Aiden says as Carly nods at his side.

“Great, let’s start with the rotational.”

If there’s one thing Scott appreciates about Carly and Aiden it’s their work ethic. He watches them skate back out onto the ice and begin tackling the complicated lift they’d begun just days before. He calls out suggestions as Carly changes positions, reminds Aiden where his hands should be, and counts out the seconds that Aiden has his partner hoisted into the air.

They’re in the middle of a fifth attempt at the lift when Maggie and Tyler arrive at the rink and Scott’s attention is pulled away from the team on the ice and back to another round of introductions. He says a quick prayer that this one will go slightly smoother than the first.

“Hiya, Scooter!” Maggie crows as she approaches, not batting an eye at Tessa. Scott wants to thank her, as Tessa immediately bursts into a bright, deep laugh that causes the corners of her eyes to crinkle. “Oh, hi.”

At Tessa’s outburst, Maggie turns and seems to take in the new presence in the rink for the first time.

“Maggie, this is Tessa Virtue. She’s hanging out with me for a bit today, watching practice.” Scott explains. “Is Tyler coming?”

“Yeah, he got caught up outside.” Maggie says, still looking at Tessa. Scott sees a sparkle in the girl’s eyes that he knows means trouble.

“Tessa’s a dancer with the National Ballet,” Scott says, attempting to draw Maggie’s attention back to him. The smile growing on her face is making him nervous.

“It’s nice to meet you, Maggie.” Tessa says, smiling kindly at the girl.

 _Ugh, don’t encourage her_ , Scott thinks at Tessa, who looks at him and blinks innocently. The action is so perfectly timed that he wonders for a brief moment if she can read his mind.

“Nice to meet you, too, Tessa.” Scott shakes his head as Maggie draws out her words, waggling her eyebrows slightly. Tessa just laughs again.

Tyler chooses this moment to come barreling into the rink, shouting over his shoulder and tracking in mud behind him.

Maggie sighs dramatically as Tyler sidles up beside her.

“And this is Tyler, Maggie’s partner.” Scott says. Tessa waves, but Scott’s not sure Tyler has even registered that Scott is speaking to him. “Tyler, this is Tessa. She’s gonna watch practice for a bit today.”

Tyler just shrugs, gives a short wave, and races off when someone across the rink yells his name.

“Ah, yes, my better half,” Maggie shakes her head at her partner’s retreating form. “Can’t live with him, can’t win without him.”

“Go get on the ice, Mags,” Scott orders, giving in and joining Tessa’s laughter as Maggie salutes him, curtsies to Tessa, and walks toward a bench to begin putting on her skates.

“Sorry about her.” Scott begins to apologize as he and Tessa return to the boards, focus turned back toward his skaters already on the ice. “She’s a bit… eccentric.”

“I liked her,” Tessa shrugs beside him, still looking out onto the ice. “She seems like a good kid.”

“Just wait until you see her on the ice.”

++

Tessa had said she would stay only for an hour, referencing rehearsals and call times she had to get back to, but at the end of Scott’s three-hour practice with his teams, she’s still by his side, nodding at his comments and swaying her hips along to the music pumping in over the speakers.

He had eventually needed to lace up his own skates, get out on the ice to demonstrate, and he’d been apprehensive about leaving Tessa alone at the boards.

He needn’t have worried, however, as she doesn’t flinch when he tells her his plan, merely glances at him and nods once before returning her focus to the ice.

It’s not until he’s out on the ice that he understands the intensity she possesses. From his position at her side by the boards she had seemed interested, maybe even intrigued. From this angle, under her direct scrutiny, she seems positively critical. With her shoulders thrust back and her chin lifted and her face stormy she commands an intimidating presence, and Scott is suddenly more nervous than he’s been on the ice since he was twenty-two and stepping onto Olympic ice for the first time.

Now, under Tessa Virtue’s critical eye, he wants to be perfect. The rational part of his brain knows that she isn’t familiar with ice dance technique, doesn’t know what a flawless Choctaw looks like, doesn’t understand the significance of a deep edge. But the other part of his brain, the 95% that lacks all capability of rational thought, wants desperately to impress her.

If he stays on the ice longer than strictly necessary, is more involved than typical, demonstrates some of the more difficult steps in Maggie and Tyler’s step sequence, well, he’s just being a good coach, right?

He steps off the ice an hour and a half later to a small smile on her lips and her eyes looking exceptionally green in the harsh light of the rink.

“Well?” He asks expectantly. Her smile grows a bit, morphing into a subtle smirk.

“I have notes,” she replies. “But I want you to come to a dance class first.”

++

“You have ballroom training, right?” Her words are the first thing Scott registers as he steps into the studio. It’s bright, bathed in light pouring in from the vast windows, and he’s temporarily blinded. He steps further into the room as his vision adjusts enough to make out Tessa, sitting in the corner of the room, fiddling with a speaker.

“Yeah, and a little bit of ballet and contemporary and hip-hop,” Scott says, dropping his bag in a corner of the room and toeing off his tennis shoes. He turns back around to find her gaping at him. “What?”

“No-nothing. I just didn’t know you’d danced so much.” She shakes her head, turning back to her phone.

“I mean, I don’t have much experience. It was just to supplement the skating,” Scott explains, moving toward where she sits in the far corner. “And, I mean, it’s called ice _dance_ for a reason.”

“Right.” She stands abruptly and Scott stops in his tracks. “Well, this is probably going to be a little bit different. Follow along.”

An hour of jumping, spinning, and rolling across the studio and Scott is convinced that she must be super human. His shirt is soaked through and she’s barely broken a sweat.

“Well?” Tessa asks, looking at him expectantly.

Scott looks up from where he’s hunched over, hands gripping his knees. “Well what?” He manages out between gasps for breath.

“Well, what did you think?” Tessa gestures rather wildly around the studio. “Is it good? Will it transfer to the ice okay?”

“Oh?” Scott says dumbly. “Oh. You mean – that was – that was for me?”

“Yeah,” she’s shy now, tucking her hair behind her ear and not looking at him. “I thought, you know, if it won’t work that’s fine…”

She trails off and he jumps to correct her. “No! No, it’s great. Perfect, really. I just didn’t know… I didn’t think you had made a decision.”

“Oh. So you think it’ll work?” She still looks unsure, but there’s a small smile pulling on the corners of her mouth.

“Absolutely,” Scott says. “I think it would be great for Carly and Aiden. But you’ll have to teach it to them. I couldn’t do it justice. Plus I’ll never be able to remember.”

It’s true – even by the end of their hour and a half in the studio, Scott was still missing steps and forgetting the choreography half way through.

“Deal,” she says, nodding her head decisively. “Just as long as I never have to step foot on the ice.”

++

She takes him to the café on the corner after he catches his breath and they gather their things and she locks up the studio. She tells him they have great salads, which makes him raise an eyebrow at her. It only arches higher when they step into the little shop and she genuinely orders a salad with a smile on her face, picking a horrifyingly green juice out of a display case and hands over her card with a content hum.

He steps up to the register as she moves toward a table and orders a BLT and wonders if he should feel guilty about his eating habits.

Tessa doesn’t say anything about it when their food arrives, though, just digs into her bowl of leafy greens and cherry tomatoes and shredded carrots happily.

“So, I have some thoughts about your programs,” she says, wiping away a non-existent trace of salad dressing from her mouth. Scott hums in acknowledgement around a bite of his sandwich. “But first I want you to teach me more about figure skating.”

“Oh?” Scott thinks his eyebrows must be in his hairline now. He hadn’t gotten the impression that she had any interest in skating, was surprised she was even working with him. He swallows his bite and puts the sandwich down on the plate in front of him. “Like, skating in general? Or ice dance specifically?”

“You only coach ice dance, right?” Scott nods. “Then that’ll be fine. I did a little bit of research last night, but I wasn’t sure what exactly I should be looking for. I just want to know what I’m getting into. And I’ll probably be a better help if I understand the rules and parameters.”

Scott chuckles lowly at her eagerness toward research and rules. He thinks it’s quite in character for her.

“Well, ice dance is basically ballroom dance on ice, but you already know that…” At Tessa’s visible interest, Scott launches into a detailed explanation.

Scott knows he’s a passionate guy. When he gets excited about something, he shows it with his whole body. He talks with his hands when he coaches, he yells at the refs when he watches Leafs games on tv, and when it comes to skating, his entire being gets involved. He wants to demonstrate, to wave his arms around, to shake whomever he’s talking to into getting as excited about the sport as he is.

But there’s something about Tessa that makes him bashful.

She sits in front of him, taking careful bites of her salad and dainty sips of her juice, nodding gently along with him, eyes wide and oh so green. She seems completely invested in his explanation of the sport that is his entire life, and it makes Scott feel shy. There’s something deep inside of him that wants her to like the sport as much as he does.

“So, yeah. That’s basically it. Two programs, rhythm dance has a lot more rules obviously, and then the free is, well, more free.” He can feel heat creeping up his neck and he curses himself inwardly. Why is he so nervous? There’s literally nothing in the world that he is more knowledgeable about than ice dance.

When he finally gets up the nerve to look back at Tessa, she’s beaming at him. The knot in his stomach untangles slightly.

“Wow,” she says softly. “Thank you. That’s really helpful. I’ll try to make sure I don’t choreograph something completely against the rules.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you.” Scott says without thinking. Tessa lets out a soft breath. “I mean, I’ll help translate it to the ice. With the teams. Not, you know, I hired you for a reason. I don’t – I can’t choreograph.”

Tessa lets out a loud, clear laugh as he trips over his words, and Scott feels the flush move up his neck and creep over his cheeks.

“I mean, we probably should work together. You know all of the technical stuff, and what actually needs to be choreographed.” Tessa reaches out and puts her hand over Scott’s, which he hadn’t even realized had been balled up on top of the table. “I think we’re going to be a good team, Scott.”

“Me too, Tess.” Scott feels sincerity radiating off of the woman in front of him, and he tries to reflect it back to her. “Me too.”

++

It’s four days before Scott sees Tessa again. Over the course of those four days he has practices with all three of his teams, and he finds himself turning from his position at the boards to make a comment to her, only to find the space beside him vacant.

It’s almost a relief when she finally joins him at the edge of the ice once again for a junior practice.

She’s clearly come straight from rehearsal. Scott gives himself a moment to admire her hair, slicked back and adhered in a neat bun at the nape of her neck, the crimson leotard that hugs her body and reveals just enough of her chest to drive him slightly crazy, and the bright smile splitting her face as she waves hello before he pulls himself together. He really needs to get a hold on his staring habit.

“Hi, Scott!” She says cheerily when she reaches the boards. She drops her bag on a bench and steps up beside him.

“Hey, welcome back,” he greets her, turning back to the ice to motion to Erin and Dylan to come to the boards. He and Tessa both watch as the two skaters, probably the smallest on the ice, make their way toward them, nearly identical looks of confusion on their faces.

He feels more than hears Tessa giggle at his side.

“Hey, guys!” Scott greets Erin and Dylan cheerfully when they reach the boards. “This is Tessa, she’s gonna watch practice and maybe give me some choreography tips today.”

“Hi!” Tessa waves. Scott is struck by how much more chipper she seems today than when she’d been at the rink the week before.

“Tess, this is Erin and Dylan. They’re my juniors.” Erin and Dylan share a glance before each raises a hand in matching tentative waves. “Okay, well, shall we get back to it? I want to see the foxtrot again.”

He watches as they skate back toward the center of the rink before turning to whisper in Tessa’s ear.

“Sometimes I think they can communicate telepathically.” Tessa giggles again, and Scott feels like he’s just won the greatest prize.

Unfortunately, as the practice progresses, it’s clear that Erin is still struggling with the style of the foxtrot pattern. Scott’s frustrated, he can tell that Erin and Dylan are upset, and he suspects that Tessa is as well. Her light, happy demeanor has faded slightly, and she’s crossed her arms and her eyebrows are again knit tightly across her forhead.

As Erin and Dylan work through the pattern, Scott turns to Tessa once more.

“This is their required pattern step, and it’s been giving Erin some serious agony. She’s so talented, but she moves with too much fluidity.” Scott explains, and Tessa nods as she watches the skaters move through the steps. “I was actually working with them on the pattern when I thought I might reach out to you. She reminds me of you.”

Tessa turns sharply at his words. He hears her suck in a breath and he falters slightly under her intense gaze. “Really?”

“Yeah. I was talking to Dylan about it and it just hit me. She looks like a ballerina. And I had just seen a video of you, and you had so much power, and yet you were so graceful and fluid, and I thought maybe you could help her figure out that balance.”

“You watched a video of me?”

“What?” Scott is caught off guard at her question, surprised that she had chosen to focus on that one small detail. “Yeah, I just kind of stumbled across it, I guess. But you were so magnetic, both on stage and in video, and something just clicked. I think Erin could move like you. She just needs a little bit of help, help that I’m absolutely not in a position to provide.”

Tessa nods, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth and turning back to watch Erin and Dylan attempt the pattern again.

“I don’t want to put any pressure on you or anything-“

“No! No,” Tessa cuts him off before he can finish giving her an out. “I want to talk to her. I have some thoughts, some ideas that might help her.”

“Great!” Scott grins. “Erin! Dylan! Come over here!”

Tessa pulls Erin off of the rink and Scott gives her directions to the small dance studio in the back and the two girls disappear down a hallway, leaving Scott with Dylan and no partner.

“So, shall we work on some twizzles?”

It’s nearly an hour before Tessa and Erin reappear, giggling over each other at something that Scott didn’t quite catch as Erin pulls back on her skates. Right before she crosses over onto the ice, Tessa tugs on her arm and whispers something in her ear, to which Erin nods and strokes out to meet Dylan.

“I take it that worked out well?” Scott asks as Tessa returns to her position at his side.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Tessa teases, wiggling her eyebrows. “But you were right, I think we are a lot a like. Now watch!”

She gives his shoulder a shove and he returns his focus to the ice. When his skaters see they have his attention, Dylan takes Erin in a dance hold, and they begin the pattern once again.

It’s still rough, Erin having worked on it off the ice and without a partner, now needing to transfer everything she’d worked on with Tessa both onto the ice and synched with Dylan, but Scott is impressed. The tiny girl on the ice seems far more relaxed, moving with a confident ease that Scott doesn’t think he’s ever seen from her before. He suddenly has a vision of them competing at a senior level, and he’s filled with pride.

They complete the pattern with no major missteps, and Dylan releases Erin from hold just to sweep her up into a huge hug.

“Yes!” Tessa cries from beside Scott, reaching out to grip his arm in excitement. “That was so good!”

Erin pulls away slightly from Dylan to send Tessa a shy yet grateful smile.

Scott has never been more proud.

++

“Can I take you to dinner?” Scott asks as he waves goodbye to Erin and Dylan and Tessa slings her bag over her shoulder. “I was thinking we could talk about programs.”

“Oh, sure!” Tessa says, looking up from where she’d been engrossed in her phone.

“Sorry, did you have plans tonight? We can absolutely do it another night, whenever is convenient for you.”

“No! It’s fine, I was just distracted.” Tessa pockets her phone and turns her full attention to him.

“Great, I’ll pick you up in an hour?”

“Tell me about your teams,” Tessa watches him over her wine glass, and Scott loses himself in her eyes, sparkling and bright green in the soft glow of the restaurant.

“What do you want to know?” He asks.

“Everything. Their stories, how long you’ve known them, what they’re like.”

She looks so earnest, it makes Scott chuckle softly. A lovely flush creeps its way up the column of her neck and Scott has a sudden urge to reach out and trace its path with his finger. He clears his throat.

“Um, well, I’ve known Erin and Dylan the longest,” he starts, watching as Tessa settles back in her seat with a contented smile. “They were paired up when they were really young, just seven and nine, when they were skating at my family’s rink.”

“Your family owns a rink?” Tessa cuts in, her mouth opening slightly in shock.

“Mhmm,” Scott shrugs casually. “My mom and aunt are coaches. My aunt was actually my first coach, she paired me up with my former partner in the first place.”

“Ellie, right?” Tessa asks, and Scott is struck by the fact that she knows his ex skating partner’s name. He’d thought that, until he walked into that studio, just weeks ago, she’d had no idea who he was. He must have a stunned look on his face, because Tessa grins shyly and says, “I may have looked you up. I needed to make sure you weren’t a murderer.”

Scott laughs at that, and Tessa’s smile grows wider until she’s beaming at him. He thinks he must be beaming back.

“Anyway, continue,” Tessa says, waving her arms in a ‘go on’ sort of motion.

“Right. So Edie and Dylan have been skating together for a while. They’re just entering the junior circuit and Edie’s parents decided she could train away from home this year – not my idea, by the way, I still think she’s too young – so they’re training with me full time now.”

“How old are they?” Tessa asks, a curious look on her face.

“Erin is 14 and Dylan’s 16.” Tessa sucks in a breath at his words but nods solemnly.

“That’s about how old I was when I left home,” she says. He wonders whether the tinge he hears in her voice is regret or reminiscing. “Sorry, keep going.”

“I mean, you’ve seen them. Dylan is incredible, such strong skating technique, and Edie, well, she’s like…” Scott trails off, reaching for the best word to describe the tiny girl’s presence on the ice.

“A pixie,” Tessa supplies, and Scott nods eagerly.

“Exactly. She’s like a pixie on the ice. Sometimes I swear the girl can float an inch off the ground.”

Tessa nods and hums in agreement. “Now tell me about the others.”

“You know I have two senior teams, you’ve met all of them. Carly and Aiden are my Americans. I never thought I would say that, I never thought I’d be betraying my country enough to coach an American team, but when I announced I was taking teams they came to me and told me they were leaving our coach as well, and it just kind of happened.”

“Hold on, you’re coaching a team that used to be coached by your old coach?” The look on Tessa’s face is pure astonishment.

“I would do anything to get a team out of that environment,” he says darkly, and Tessa’s eyes flash with concern. He knows he’ll have to tell her about his career at some point, but this dinner doesn’t feel like the time.

Tessa just nods and doesn’t push for more information, and Scott is so grateful he could kiss her.

“Anyway, I told them that of course I would take them, and within a week they were in Toronto. They’re the oldest of the three, Carly is twenty and Aiden is twenty-two, and they’re absolutely elegant. They’re just so good, I really think they have a shot at medalling at their nationals this year.”

“I’m not sure we got off to a great start,” Tessa says, voice laced with insecurity. Scott feels a tug in his gut, desperate to soothe the worry from her voice and the lines that form as she scrunches up her face.

“No, no. That was all on me,” he’s quick to reassure. “They’re going to love you, if they don’t already.”

Tessa’s smile returns, if slightly less dim, and she reaches out to squeeze his hand in thanks.

“Right, then the last team is Maggie and Tyler. Those two are my wildcards.” Scott chuckles as he thinks about the antics his skaters get up to in the rink. “They’re like firecrackers on the ice, full of potential and ready to explode.”

“I got that impression,” Tessa laughs, and Scott thinks he would do anything to hear the sound again.

“Right, that introduction was pretty typical of them. Maggie, she’s just turned eighteen, she’s a troublemaker. She loves to push me around and thinks she can get away with anything. And then Tyler, he’s nineteen, is just a massive goofball. The two of them together are a ridiculous disaster, but somehow they make it work.”

“They all seem incredible, Scott.” Tessa’s eyes sparkle as the candle between them flickers.

He’s struck by how beautiful she looks, sitting across from him at the little table in the corner of the dark, cozy restaurant. Her hair is down, long and dark and thrown over her shoulder carelessly. He can see a pattern of freckles running down her neck and over her shoulders under the cream blouse she’s wearing, and he briefly wonders where they lead. Her eyes, still sparkling and green and he thinks maybe some flecks of gold are filled with life and joy and they make him feel warm and bubbly inside. The corner of her mouth quirks and there’s a knot tangled in the pit of Scott’s stomach and he thinks she’s about to say something more, but their waiter chooses that moment to return to their table to take their order and the moment is broken.

Her presence is comforting, and they fall into an easy quiet as they eat.

“Scott,” the silence is broken by Tessa’s soft utterance. Scott looks up at her and he can tell she’s building up to something big by her hesitant tone and the worried look on her face. “Scott, why did you ask me to choreograph for you instead of your partner?”

Whatever Scott had been expecting – her to tell him she didn’t want to choreograph anymore, that she doesn’t think they work well together, that she actually doesn’t like his teams – it wasn’t this. He gapes at her, completely caught off guard.

“It’s just, you have so much history with her, and she knows the sport, and I know she did some choreography when you were skating together, and…” she trails off, worrying her lip between her teeth as she pushes her food around on her plate. “Why me?”

“Tess,” Scott sighs. He does not want to get into his messy past in the sport now, but he knows that Tessa needs to know. “Ellie… she wants nothing to do with skating anymore. She wants nothing to do with _me_ anymore.”

Scott hates the way his voice cracks, and he feels the urge to recoil when Tessa reaches out and puts her hand over his.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and he shakes his head.

“No, don’t, there’s nothing to be sorry for.” He insists, and she squeezes his hand a little tighter. “At the end of our career, I wanted to keep going. When we got silver at Sochi, Ellie was done. We had our Olympic medals, we had our decade long career, we could be done now. But I wanted more. I knew there had to be more. So I pushed her to go for another quad. All she wanted was to settle down, get married and have a couple kids and live a normal life. But I was selfish and she was not, so I got my way. It tore us apart.”

“I had no idea, Scott.” Tessa turns his hand over under hers, laces their fingers together, and squeezes.

“It wasn’t exactly something we shared with the public. We had to keep up the happy partners appearance, even though we were at each other’s throats every day for four years. And then, in the end, it didn’t matter. We went home with bronze. It wasn’t worth it, and I fucked up her life for four extra years.” Tessa looks horrified, but Scott only shrugs. “It never occurred to me to ask her to choreograph for me. I don’t even know if she would pick up if I called.”

“I’m sure she would,” Tessa insists.

“Maybe, maybe not. The point is, she wasn’t my first choice.” He holds Tessa’s gaze as he says it. “I wanted you, Tess. You were my only choice.”


End file.
